Decision
by Ellstra
Summary: "Whatever you do, whatever details you alter, we will always end up here." Maybe Lucifer's words had deeper meaning which Dean is only getting now when the world is shattering into pieces. And it's all his fault.


_**I started writing this right after I finished season nine (or maybe after I stopped crying enough to see the screen.) Enjoy!**_

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I drive as usual which is comforting. There are all the things that accompany normal driving – the soft feel of the steering wheel under my fingers, the quiet, endless humming of engine and the scenery flashing by in the windows. It reminds of all the years I spent behind Baby's dashboard, the years when life was simple even though it felt difficult. I wish I knew then what I know now – that it doesn't really matter what we are facing, as long as we stay true to who we are. But it doesn't matter anymore because I am far from being the same man who picked Sam up at Stanford, begging him to come and search for dad, for the man he's never really known. I don't know if I am more sorry for Sam who never got to see who our parents truly were, or for myself because I know what we've lost.

My pity is redundant and useless. It won't change a thing now; it won't do either good or bad, because there's no pity left in me. No pity, no regret, no compassion, no mercy; I'm just a killer now. I have lost this fight, lost everything because what could I possibly seek now? When Sam was addicted to demon blood, all we had to do was rid him of it. When he had no soul, the only thing we needed to do was retrieve it. But my soul was burnt down, twisted and corrupted by the mark of Cain.

_Whatever you do, you will always end up here. No matter what choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up here._

My baby brother's lips pronounced those words, but it was Lucifer saying them. And now with the mark of Cain burnt onto my forearm, with the incinerating desire to shove a blade into flesh inside me and reason long forgotten on the path I decided to take, it is difficult to convince myself he wasn't right. Maybe the details he was talking about went deeper than just averting the apocalypse, sending Lucifer and Michael to their blazing love nest and getting Sam back. Maybe it was even simpler.

That whatever I do, I will always end up the ruthless killing machine that doesn't look back because he lost the ability to care. Maybe that's what the whole trip-to-future was about; to show me that I am a monster, that I will cause destruction of everything, I will hurt and break everybody I ever knew. I will cause Cas – the noble, pure, lovely Castiel who may be a powerful angel but is too innocent to live among humans – to fall, to crumble into pieces, to become a fucking junkie. Are we all going to end up junkies? Sam, Crowley and now me – is Cas going to follow the trend? I will force my brother to stand up against me, to fight me, because he knows his duties and he wouldn't give his life for me. I will get the world to end because that's what I do.

_And I know you won't kill Sam_.

Lucifer said that too. It was the only thing I chose to believe from his speech, it was the only thing that mattered, the only thing I could rely on, the certainty my world was built upon. I will protect Sam no matter the consequences, no matter the cost because we are brothers and family is the only thing that matters.

But now I don't know anymore. Sam told me he didn't want to be my brother.

_You say that like it's some sort of cure-all, like it can change the fact that everything that has ever gone wrong between us has been because we're family._

And maybe, just maybe, he's right. It feels so wrong to even consider such a thing but what if... We have brought so much pain, suffering and disorder onto the surface of Earth because we were too scared to let go of each other. Or maybe only I was. As Sam stated before, I didn't want to be alone. I saved him for myself because the world without him was an unimaginable place for me. Was it really a bad thing to save Sammy, to save my little brother, to save the only person who has always been here with me, the person who is more or less obliged to stay with me? Maybe it was.

He hates me for that, doesn't he? When he accused me of being selfish, from doing a wrong thing, he meant it. He had that expression on his face that told me that whatever is going to happen, no matter how many times he would save my life, he would not forgive me. That even if Gadreel turns out to be the guy to save the whole world, Sam would never forgive me for tricking him to be a vessel for the angel. He will never understand I only did what I thought was necessary, he would never admit it was a good thing. He is convinced I robbed him of a free will.

And I know I did. By letting Gadreel in, I broke the line of trust between us. However good my intentions were, whatever good came out of it, I did something he cannot forgive – I made a decision for him. No, I forced him to change his conviction, I practically tore him out of Death's embrace, the embrace Sam chose to get. I was selfish and I did the worst thing I could to him. I made him carry an angel within him.

I do get his anger now, I understand why he was so harsh on me. I broke him apart yet another time when I forced him to lose control over his own body. Did it feel like when he was locked inside Lucifer?

I broke Sam, I'm breaking Castiel and I've got everybody else in this shitty world killed. I can see that Cas is already shattering into pieces, he's becoming something he wasn't; the Cas I met so many years ago is gone, the foolish child who thought he could play God and remedy all the wrong that is in the world has disappeared, the lunatic who was in love with a demon and wanted to keep bees has vanished and the puppet of heaven died too. This new Castiel is not the one who saved me from Hell, that Cas would never lead an army or make angels murder other angels or even humans. My Cas, the Cas I loved is gone.

My little brother Sammy is gone too. All the things that happened between us, all the crap we've been through... I thought I could ignore it, forget about it, get over it, but it's become too much for it to be overlooked. He can't forgive me and that's the point of no return. Whatever was tying us together – it's crumpled and I can't see a point in pretending otherwise. My brother doesn't trust me.

I can't trust myself around either of them, I can't trust myself around anybody because I can't control myself. What have I become? Who am I?

I don't have any choice left, do I? I can't do anything to fix this; I can only bring this to the end and preferably die in the process. And as Sam promised, he won't try to bring me back, to drag me back into this misery, to make me watch all what is left of my life fall into pieces. I must take down Metatron, allow Cas to give all the angels express tickets to Heaven and stab myself with the first blade if necessary. It always had to be this way, right? I used to say I would die with a gun in my hands – but huh, a jaw of an animal that is dead for centuries is just as good, right?

And when I think of dying, of killing myself for the greater good and even for less if necessary – isn't this what Sam talked about? That he was prepared to let go, to leave all his troubles, pain and guilt behind and move on? He wanted to be free, get rid of this shitty world and start a whole new adventure and hopefully get the life he always wanted. A quiet peaceful life with boring law courses and meetings with uptight pretentious businessmen and their wives who spend their entire lives doing nothing but gossiping, shopping and getting manicure, pedicure and whatever-crap-other-cure. That's what he wanted when he was prepared to let Death lead him away.

He won't do that to me. I know it; not only because he has experienced it himself but also because he cares for me. He cares for me better than for himself; unlike myself because he was absolutely right when he said I saved him for me. I did. I can't deny it; I would be lost without him and I couldn't accept the fact that he was gone. Sam is stronger than me; despite being broken and lost over and over, he always recovered because that's who he is. He is the stronger one, always has been even if I tried to pretend otherwise. He doesn't need me anymore; I stopped being the big brother long ago.

And now I'm not even a brother. It's too late for lies and pretending. We've gone too far to be rescued or redeemed. The only way is straight through the mine field hoping I'll get far enough to cause some damage to the enemy before I get torn apart. Because that's what this is about, right? The blade is going to take over me if I don't act fast enough.

But I will. I'm not going to let it change me, because the only thing I could always rely on was that every time I did something, however bad the result was, I had good intention. Now with the blade clouding my judgement, I'm not really able to tell the difference between good and bad.

But if I'm about to go down, I'll try hard to take Metatron and every other son of a bitch I can find with me. To protect my family, because in the end, that's all that matters.


End file.
